You recently posted a throwback shot with actor Nkem Owoh on your Instagram account generating a lot of controversies one of which was how the child actor has transformed into a grown man almost overnight. How do you react to people’s surprise about your transformation?
Every single time people meet me I always get things like, “How come you grew up so much?” But they forget I am not the only growing, they too have grown. But that’s the thing about growing in front of the screen; people will always see you as that baby actor. At a point, I stopped acting because I wanted to focus on my education. I had spent most of my primary and secondary school days acting.
Those days, I’d skip classes because I was filming. But it came a time I felt I needed to pay more attention to my studies. That was when I gained admission to study History and International Relations at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. That took like six to seven years of my life because after school, I went to London for a programme on Global Analytics before I joined the United Nations. So, all those times that people were not seeing me, they were watching my baby movies on African Magic and people still think I am the same. I have been in the entertainment industry for over 22 years now.
But how did you find yourself in front of the camera as a child?
It was introduced to me by one of my family friends, Afam Okeke. I was just eight years then. Afam came to my house one day and saw me speaking. He told me that he liked my English and then decided to feature me in a movie. I started with an African American show. Some Americans had come to Nigeria to shoot a movie and they needed young Nigerians as cast. I didn’t quite understand it, but I was taken for the show. After that the directors felt that I was good enough for more jobs and that was how I landed my first Nollywood movie role, “The Journey of the Dead” in 1999. After the first film, other roles started coming.
And as a child actor, you have acted in over 75 movies. Did you get help in terms of role interpretation? Was it difficult at some point?
No. Acting has never been difficult for me. I don’t struggle to play any role. I have been doing this since I was in nursery school: from school to church drama. People say actors are born, perhaps that is my case because I never went to an acting school, I was never trained to act, I approached acting from a more enthusiastic rather than nervous angle. Some children, even adult, become timid when they act with bigger actors like Daddy Pete Edochie, Uncle Clem Ohameze, Mummy Hilda Dokubo. These are the people I started with, but I was even more excited to act with them and so that excitement helped me to interpret my roles well. Producers took notice and kept giving me more roles.
You left the scene for too long. How do you see the trajectory of Nollywood?
There have been changes, no doubt, though I can’t compare Nollywood with that of the music industry in terms of the level of transformation. But when I was there, we were using DV Cams, in fact, the majority of the movies I shot were on VHS. So, the quality of filming in Nollywood, by that I mean the sound, the light, has experienced a lot of transformation so that when we see some of the movies that people are doing now in comparison to the past there is tremendous change. I know a lot of work still needs to be done, but we must first acknowledge the changes we are witnessing in our movie industry.
You are the sole originator of the expression: “I don’t like what I hate”. What inspired that?
I was having a conversation with someone which suddenly degenerated into an argument. (I don’t like arguments.) So, in order to calm the situation down I was like, “No, No, I don’t like what I hate”. It just came out like that. The person who was arguing furiously with me started laughing. That was how that expression came about. And truly from a literal perspective, it kind of makes sense. There are things we Nigerians don’t like that we do. We do things we don’t want the government to do. Take corruption for example. Everybody is shouting the government is corrupt, but you are selling something at a ridiculous margin, isn’t that corruption? In actual sense, you like what you hate, but me; I don’t like what I hate. It’s catchy.
With the help of social media five years ago, a new sector emerged from the entertainment industry. We began to see people who create and spread entertaining contents in several forms on social media. Are you one of the chieftains of this sector?
Yes. The sector you are referring to is called Social Media Influencers. It is a $56billion market. Social media in the early 20s was something we just started to embrace. Today, almost everybody is on Facebook. I joined social media just like every other person. But I soon realised the potential and significance of social media to this generation. First, when I came back into the industry, it was a bit rusty getting contacts and all. I just started posting things on my accounts. Of course, it wasn’t for the money; I was just living my everyday life.
I took the comedy skits seriously when I realised that I was helping people. People in Nigeria are going through a lot of things. A lady contacted me that her mother had had cancer for a long time. Her mom hadn’t smiled for six months but that my video made her laugh. I was humbled. At this point I would like to add that until your gift is used for others you will not fully know the worth of it, you will abuse it. From then on, I made it a duty to wake and think of ways to make people laugh.
But have you made money from it?
Like I said, I wasn’t making money from it. But at some point, people started calling me to post their products for a fee, but I wasn’t comfortable to post sex enhancement ads or clothe line. I was very careful about what to put out. I am not only a Youth Ambassador, but also a Christian. Recently, though big companies started contacting me and they pay good, good money. I did a research and I realised that the social media influencers are taking over the traditional means of advertisement. Big companies bring out money to sponsor adverts on social media than elsewhere, because of the immediate reach. So, yes, we’re making good money now.
And how do you get the inspiration for these jokes?
I am a strong Christian. I will say that my inspiration comes from God. I can make a skit from anything and anywhere. The skit I did about playing God came to me two hours before I did it. I was in church and I thought about it: a lot of people play God on people’s life. Imagine if man becomes God? I shot it with my phone and it went viral.
Some people think you shouldn’t advertise your philanthropy. What do you have to say about that?
I am not doing what I am doing for any reward. The philanthropic things I do, if I give somebody something and I don’t put it out, it is only that person that will benefit from it. I have one million followers on Instagram. But if I record and post, it is encouraging others to do likewise and if 10 per cent of my followers do that same thing to people around them, I am helping a 100,000 people. It is no longer one person; I have started a chain reaction. I have a great passion for the very poor and the underprivileged. If I show you the number of projects I am taking up and the number of people that I have reached out to that I don’t put out you will be amazed.
I went through some of your comments. I found that for every post of good-will you make, over 2000 comments contain requests for financial help?
That is small. You need to see my email and DMs. In a day, I get about 500 to 1000 please-help messages. I am not kidding, I can show you. I have well over 7000 unread messages on DMs. But you see I can’t help everybody. I don’t even have the money to. One of these days, I will post my account balance to show people that I don’t have all the money, but what I know is that it doesn’t really cost much to take people off the street. How much do these three kids need to re-connect with their mother? We can spend it on a drink here, but I have decided to forgo that life so that many more people can have better lives.
How old are you?
I will be 29 years in October.
and then